Episode 2 Review

August 28, 2014

Here the web series continues the present storyline with Dane. As we remember from the previous, Dane has some seriously romantic lines. Dane is a poet, and he proves it with his opening monologue. I’m not usually a fan of beat poets. There’s beat poet stereotype of highly amateur and alternative artist, and Last Fall of Ashes breaks that stereotype. Enter Dane, who writes a fantastic love poem about a girl he just met. The rhythm is good, the performance is genuine, and it even gets a little dirty. Enter Michael, sitting in the audience. Now the two storylines collide, much sooner than I anticipated. Consequently, Dane and Michael strike up a fast friendship. Dane knows nothing, and Michael knows everything. The suspense on what Michael will do to Dane and Alina builds over the course of the night. Suddenly, Michael is a real threat, and Dane and Alina’s romance is undertoned with danger. Mostly this episode is a great sequence of cutting between Alina and Dane and scenes from Michael’s backstory. He’s not the shinning knight that we briefly saw in Episode 1. Over the course of the episode we get to know Michael and what happened between him and Alina. Alina works between two different storylines, and does a great job at making the two different versions of her believable. It takes more than just some tattoos and piercings to discern between the past Alina and the present Alina. Present Alina takes more control of her life, and this is evident with how she deals with Dane. It’s easy to empathize with Alina, and recognize how a person (not just a woman) can come back from a seriously bad place. Again Last Fall of Ashes utilizes a specific style with strong cinematography and soundtrack. The beginning is where the lack of music really worked, so the audience could hear Dane’s poetry on Alina completely on its own. It’s an effective strategy to avoid Dane getting overwhelmed by the dramatic music. The sequence that constantly cuts to Michael’s flashbacks makes up about 80% of the episode. It’s an effective storytelling method, and flashbacks feel better than simply switching back and forth between the timelines. You can see the progression of Alina getting pushed further and further into a dark corner. She gets the piercings, and tattoos only seem to come out post-Michael. The only time this progression seems inconsistent is during the flashback scene set in the fall, when Alina has an extra piercing. Now that most of the backstory has been filled in, Last Fall of Ashes can move forward. What happens now that Michael knows who Dane is?